Veteran gamers may remember ol' OutRun from back in the day, that coin-op arcade smash with nothing but Ferrari convertibles racing from checkpoint to checkpoint. Heck, that same machine still pops up in corner stores and laundromats to this day, frivolously fantastic time waster that it is. Totally fake racing and stupidly easy to play, mind you, where the only thing difficult about it was trying to keep the clock alive, which meant keeping a stupidly perfect power-drifting line so that full throttle equated to full speed all the time; one little hitch through the ditch and you = toast, but frivolously fantastic just the same.

Well, it's back, obviously, in the form of OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for PlayStation2. Not the first time OutRun has come to consoles, but essentially the same tried-and-true, stupidly fantastic formula of the arcade heyday regardless of its umpteeth regurgitation status.

It delivers almost the same graphic simplicity with crisp but unadorned visuals totally lacking in anything remotely resembling pimp. Seems intentional, however, as that was always part of OutRun's appeal; keep it simple, stupid, keep it fun.

The stupid fun extends to control, too, where you can comfortably race with just two buttons for gas and brake (pfft, brake) and a thumbstick to steer (or add two more buttons for up/down shift if you choose manual transmission).

Seriously, it's really a nice break from all those head-scratching thumb-twister controls used in most modern race games with 900 pounds of simulated perplexity.

In the options department, OutRun 2006 is sorely lacking with just two. Perhaps that's also intentional, considering the aforementioned quickie time-waster-ness of it all, but it still seems a wee scant.

One mode is pure racing, the second includes racing with a sexy passenger who will goad you into pulling manly manoeuvres, like passing as many cars as you can, go crash-free for an entire sector, maybe hitting as many cars as you can or perhaps two of the more novel ideas, avoiding UFOs and running over ghosts. Pretty weird, pretty fun, pretty pretty.

Sure, it's not a lap-based simulation powerhouse game like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport with all those glorious graphics and freakish, long-playing depth, but that's the point. Play OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast for the stupid simplicity of get-in-and-go racing, because that's what it delivers, fantastically.